Born into a family of tradespeople in a small city in France, Henri Rousseau became a customs and excise officer in the customs house in Paris in 1871, a job that earned him the nickname 'the customs officer'. Rousseau was an enthusiastic self-taught artist. Nourished by themes in the popular imagination, Rousseau's painting expresses a vision of reality, populated by iconic figures outlined with hieratic force against flat blocks of saturated color...